Making Your Coworker Jealous 101
by Gray Doll
Summary: 'Patrick Jane, you should prepare yourself.'


_What is this? Gray Doll has written something without darkness and angst? Well... Happy New Year everyone!_

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**Making Your Coworker Jealous 101**

Teresa Lisbon heard the door open and close, looked up, and then rolled her eyes back down to the computer screen with a small sigh. Perhaps if she pretended he wasn't there, he would disappear.

No such luck; He cleared his throat, very audibly so, and she groaned inwardly.

"Lisbon! How have you been, you little busy bee?"

Lisbon said nothing and kept her eyes focused on her computer instead.

"Hello? You in there?"

She bit the inside of her cheek. Her fingers may or may not have started hitting the keyboard with a bit more force than needed.

"Lis-bon." His attempt was punctuated with him sitting directly on top of the huge pile of paperwork she was supposed to be transcribing for Abbott. "What are you doing?" Lisbon shut her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again.

"I'm ignoring you, Jane. You should be familiar with this certain practice from your nights at the bar hitting on that cocktail waitress."

"Oh my, someone's snippy today," he said airily. "Also, for your information, Lisbon, I was the one to tell the waitress that there was no chance anything would happen between us. Besides, I'm old enough to be her creepy uncle."

Lisbon gritted her teeth, deciding to ignore his comment about the cocktail waitress. "I get _snippy_ every time you come here and interrupt me. Don't _you_ have work you're supposed to be doing?"

He gave a small shrug. "I'm on my lunch break."

"It's _ten_."

"It's an early break."

"_Jane_."

He threw his hands up in the air. "Well sue me for wanting to come here and have some conversation with my favorite coworker!"

Lisbon finally looked up at him, setting her palms flat on either side of the keyboard. "I thought Agent Fischer was your favorite coworker. Also know that I will only refrain from suing you because _she_ already is after that incident in the lunchroom."

"Oh, she never pressed charges." He grinned. "And, for the record, I really _did_ drop my fork."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. "Of course you did. And you were so famished you just had to dive under the table to get it." She turned back to the computer and started typing again.

"Oh come on, she blew it out of proportion."

"_You looked up her skirt_."

"Maybe she should stop wearing one-inch long skirts to work, then," he said indignantly. "Wait, no, she shouldn't. It would be a tragedy to cover up those legs."

Lisbon snorted in disgust and hit the 'print' icon on the computer screen, then stood up and moved to the printer when it began to whir and hum. Jane came up behind her in a flash and somehow managed to snatch it from the buzzing machine before she could.

Lisbon shut her eyes and clenched her teeth. "_Jane_."

He narrowed his eyes as he looked down at the paper. "What is this? Statistics? Meh, boring." He dropped it to the desk but, as paper is wont to do, it rode the air and fell over the edge, falling beneath the desk.

Lisbon was on the verge of tearing her hair out. Unfortunately, bashing a coworker on the head with a stapler until they were writhing on the floor would probably get her fired, and so she was forced to ignore Jane's merry little chuckle as she ducked beneath the desk to get the paper.

"Jane, if you're looking at my ass, I swear to God I'll-"

The door opened.

"Teresa, do you have the-" Brandon Gray looked into the room, saw Jane, and very nearly wheeled around and walked back out. A bit too late, though.

"Gray! How are you this fine morning?" Jane called out with a huge smile plastered on his face. Brandon looked wary; the man had only been working with Jane and Lisbon at the FBI for about a month now, and he'd come to know that interacting with Jane on work hours for anything besides the job was guaranteed career-suicide. "And, _Teresa_? As in, first names between you two now?" Jane's gaze altered between them. "That's a development."

Brandon blinked, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I-"

"Almost as juicy as the one where one of the techies said he saw you two emerging from the lunchroom looking a little disheveled," Jane continued.

Lisbon smacked her head on the desk when she came back up. "_Which_ techie?" She knew this couldn't be true – she had never been alone with Brandon Gray in the lunchroom, or in any room for that matter. Not that she was oblivious to his lingering gazes when he thought she wasn't looking, or the flush that spread across his cheeks almost every time they were interrogating suspects together and were sitting too close.

"I think it was Wylie," Jane mumbled, chewing on his bottom lip as though he was really trying to remember. "Oh wait, no, it was that other one, the really tall one who was a transfer from-"

"Jane, that's enough," Lisbon interrupted, slamming the paper next to the keyboard with an audible smack. "Seriously, _don't_ you have work to do? Or if you don't, isn't there any female agent here that you haven't harassed yet?"

Brandon was now positively crimson. "O-kay," he muttered and swiveled around, exiting the office Lisbon had been given as her own and closing the door behind him.

Jane shook his head. "Really, Lisbon, the poor guy's head over heels with you. You should give him a chance."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, unlike some, I don't jump on the first man that will look at me with something more than strict professionalism just to annoy-" She paused, realizing what she was about to say.

"Annoy whom?" Jane tilted his head to the side, his beaming smile giving way to a small pout.

Lisbon sat down on her chair and turned to the computer screen. "No-one. Forget it."

They stayed in silence for several long seconds, Jane leaning on the desk, watching her, and Lisbon pretending to be reading a non-existent file, until he walked around the desk and sat down on the arm of the chair.

Sighing, Lisbon looked up. "What is it now?"

"Does it truly bother you?" he asked, quite seriously, and she frowned.

"What?"

"That I've been... talking to various women lately."

She gave a small chuckle that sounded forced even to her own ears. "Of course not – I'm happy for you. It's great that you're... that you're moving on."

"So it doesn't bother you."

"Come on Jane, why would it? Of course it doesn't!"

"Oh." He nodded. "I see." he got up and started for the door. "I suppose I'll leave you to work, then."

His hand was already on the door handle, but he suddenly turned around and fixed her with a gaze she couldn't make sense of.

"Is there anything else?"

"Yes." He walked back to her desk. "Yes, there is. Lisbon, you know you're a terrible actress, right?"

"Excuse me?"

"You're a terrible actress. And the fact that I am a very good one – actor, that is, not actress – doesn't make things any better."

She arched her eyebrows. "Jane, have you had your mandatory morning cup of tea yet? You're not making any sense."

"Look, I know it makes you jealous, seeing me go around flirting with female agents and bartenders et cetera," he continued, and her eyes widened. "And, honestly, it makes _me_ jealous seeing all these men ogling you like crazy, and you smiling at them like they have a chance. And I think we should both stop this, because we're just lying to ourselves, aren't we?"

After a few moments of stunned silence, Lisbon slowly stood up. "Jane," she started, her voice even. "You should prepare yourself."

He gave her a puzzled look. "For what?"

"For either a slap or a kiss. I'm still trying to decide."


End file.
